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LPI to certify 4,000 professionals in LatAm this year(BNamericas.com Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Canadian Linux certification body Linux Professional Institute (LPI) expects to certify 4,000 professionals in the use of open source software in Latin America in 2006, LPI's regional director Jos Carlos Gouveia told BNamericas. Gouveia expects LPI, which claims to be the world's third largest Linux certifier after the Japanese government and BMI, to carry out 10,000 tests this year, with 2,000 of those in Mexico. In 2005, there were 1,200 people LPI certified in Latin America. The hike in 2006 will come from an increased focus from LPI on Latin America combined with greater interest from both the public and private sectors in adopting Linux, Gouveia said on the sidelines of the Linux World conference in Mexico City this week. "There is a very strong interest in Linux as it is considered a very powerful and professional operating system. Some 70% of servers worldwide use Linux," Gouveia said. "Open source is very important for Latin American countries due to the savings in license fees. It is not free but it costs a government much less per year to have a Linux operating system than a proprietary one," Gouveia added. The highest rate of certification is likely to be seen in Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina due to important efforts made by those countries' governments to promote the use of Linux in the public sector, according to Gouveia. According to LPI's CEO Jim Lacey, LPI is attractive worldwide because it is a non-profit organization. Though it receives funding from companies such as Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), LPI is vendor-independent and that gives it a lot of credibility, Lacey said. "We're starting to get requests from companies all over the globe because of the way we're positioned as vendor-independent and non-profit. So the credibility comes with the knowledge that the only thing we care about is skill in the IT workforce around the globe and measuring those skills," Lacey told BNamericas. LPI awarded this week its 30,000th certification in Guanajuato, Mexico. |